Paper Doors
by Netbug009
Summary: Tigress tells herself that she's here because Po vented about his deepest insecurities to her back on the boat ride to Gongmen City, so somehow that means she owes him. TiPo if you squint. (No KFP3 Spoilers.)


**A/N:** Wasn't sure if I should tag this as TiPo or not, because while I ship them like FedEx this fic could also be treated as platonic love if you prefer. Whatever gives you the warm fuzzies is fine by me.

Pointing out any errors in tense usage is _greatly_ appreciated because how does I flashback in present tense?

* * *

 **Paper Doors**

Po's not sure what prompts Tigress, on a cold quiet night that makes the Jade Palace's already sparse lighting seem even dimmer, to knock on his door without her usual almost paper-ripping force. When Po goes to answer, Tigress lets her body slide down the other side of the door and he can see the dim shadow of her back keeping the door wedged shut between them.

She tells herself that she's here because Po vented about _his_ deepest insecurities to her back on the boat ride to Gongmen City, so somehow that means she owes him. This reasoning doesn't convince or ease her anxiety in the slightest. Just because she has finally found someone she can trust with everything – just because she _can_ confide in someone - doesn't mean she suddenly knows _how_. She just knows she needs to tell him this or it will continue to suffocate her.

"I was…" she says in the exact same tone as when they were interrupted on the boat, "…raised in an orphanage. An orphanage filled with those much weaker than I." She stares at her paws. "So much weaker that I hurt them without trying. I was locked away from everyone in a room I'd dismantled without meaning to. And… I didn't know how to handle any of it. I didn't know how to _not_ feel all of the pain and loneliness that came naturally to me."

She continues to sit on the other side of the screen door and dish out her entire (awesome) life story with a level of emotional detail no book on the subject has been capable of conveying. About halfway through, Tigress feels the weight of Po sitting on the other side of the door, back to back with her, and listening with a level of quiet patience she hadn't realized he was capable of.

It takes her almost an hour to get through everything. _Everything_. She tells him how she never knew her parents and has no idea if they were killed or if she was too much of a burden or if they just saw her as a monster too. She tells him about dark, quiet nights spent in the locked room; how she'd wet the bed so many times because she had to hold it until morning when someone came to feed her. She tells him about how she felt used when Shifu seemed to have nothing to give her but training and she _still_ wasn't sure if she knew what love was supposed to feel like. She tells him way more than she'd originally intended to. More than what could ever be justified as necessary to get to her point, lulled to a deeper level of comfort by the calm, nonjudgmental warmth of his back that seeps through the thin paper separating them.

"So Po," Tigress finally says, looking over her shoulder at the panda's shadow, "don't make the same mistake I did. Don't let anything or anyone make you see your ability to feel so strongly as a weakness."

She stands to leave, intending for that to be the end of the discussion, but she's not terribly surprised when she hears the screen door slide open with the sound of heavy footsteps.

What _does_ catch her off guard is Po grabbing her arm, spinning her to face him, and scooping her up into a hug, burying his face in her shoulder. What causes her eyes to widen to the size of teacups is the quiet "Thank you, Tigress," he whispers; the realization that he understands why she's at his door in the middle of the night. She hears Po try to muffle a sniffle and fells tears begin to stain her shoulder.

She's wrong, she realizes. She _does_ know what love feels like, and she adds that to her long list of ways she's thankful Po has shaken her world since the day he arrived at the Jade Palace.

So for once, in some attempt to start to show her gratitude, she hugs him back, burying her head in him and feeling the greatest sense of peace she's felt in a lifetime.


End file.
